


Heart & Souls

by Velvedere



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (I promise), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Eventual Happy Ending, Ghosts, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Out of Body Experiences, lovingly ripped off from the movie of the same name
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 12:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3290459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/pseuds/Velvedere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was a kid, Tony Stark had four imaginary friends he thought he outgrew.</p><p>Now they’re back, and they need his help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Right! So...this is my first venture outside of writing Thor and Loki stuff. If anything feels off (especially about Steve and Tony), drop me a note? Sometimes I'm bad at these things.

Tony sighed, and closed his eyes.

He pressed the cold glass of scotch against his forehead.

His free hand dug into the chair arm, tight enough to make the leather squeak.

His heel bounced out a nervous pattern on the floor.

The psychiatrist raised an eyebrow behind her glasses. She didn’t look overly impressed at his decision to bring alcohol into her office.

She sat across from him, her heels crossed under the chairleg and a blank notepad in her lap.

“How long have you had these hallucinations?” she asked, lips pressed primly together when she wasn’t speaking. Probably only barely holding her temper for a man who had barged into her practice a few minutes ago and demanded an immediate session.

It was amazing what money could buy.

“Well I had them when I was a kid,” Tony mumbled, sinking down lower into the chair cushions. “Went to therapy for it. Took medication. Eventually they went away.”

The psychiatrist hadn’t written anything down on her notepad. She was watching him.

“And now they’re back?”

“Yeah.”

“When did you start to experience them again?”

“About three hours ago.” Tony took a gulp of his scotch. “I was driving. Suddenly there’s someone sitting right next to me and three people in the back seat.” Another gulp as he recalled the heart attack he’d nearly had. “I kind of ran my car into a Kinkos.”

“Did you contact the authorities?”

“I don’t think they wanna hear about my ghost stories...”

“I mean about the Kinkos.” She looked at him flatly. “Property damage. And you could be concussed.”

Tony blinked.

“Oh. Yeah. No. Happy’s handling that. And the ambulance guy said I was fine.”

“Tony,” said Steve.

The psychiatrist wrote something down on her notepad.

“These hallucinations. Are you still seeing them?”

“Yep.”

“Are they here right now?”

“Yep.”

Another gulp.

“Tony,” Steve said again.

“What do these hallucinations tend to look like?”

“Tony, this is important.”

“Uh. Well, they’re consistent.” Tony cringed. Having to describe them out loud was confirmation he didn’t want.

And he was getting low on scotch.

“One of them is, uh...an archer. Bow. Feathers. The whole Robin Hood thing.” He gestured to the couch lining one part of the psychiatrist’s office. “He’s sitting on the back of the couch.”

“This is awesome leather,” said Clint.

To her credit, the psychiatrist didn’t turn to look.

“And the others?”

“Well, one is a big – _big_ – green monster. Another one claims to be...well...”

She raised her eyebrow again in quiet prompt.

“He says he’s Thor, God of Thunder.”

“I am Thor,” said Thor, frowning.

Steve sighed.

“Tony. We don’t have time for this.”

The psychiatrist wrote something else down on her notepad.

Tony pretended he didn’t crane his neck to look.

“Are there any others?”

“Yeah, there’s also...uh...well...”

Steve rolled his eyes.

“Mr. Stark?” she prompted, when Tony kept stalling.

Tony downed the rest of his scotch in one gulp.

“One of them is Captain America,” he said, very quickly.

“Captain America?”

“Yep.”

“As in the historical figure? Or from the comic books?”

“Looks pretty three-dimensional to me.” Tony nodded. “He’s standing right there next to your door, disapproving.”

She wrote something down on her notepad again.

“And it’s just the four?”

“So far.”

“The same four from your childhood?”

“They haven’t aged a day.”

“Neither have you,” Clint chimed in, glancing out the office window. “You pickled yourself at twenty.”

Tony drummed his fingers on the chair arms, left no with no booze to distract himself. He looked at the clock on the wall. Pushed up and then let himself slide back down in the chair. He did anything he could to keep himself in one place and not look at the four imaginary people there in the office with them.

The ones only he could see.

The psychiatrist wrote for a moment longer.

Thor leaned in to look over her shoulder, frowning at the scribbled handwriting.

“What is this word ‘naltrexone?’”

“Mr. Stark, I’m going to be blunt,” she said, lifting her head to fix him with a steady look. “How much have you had to drink today?”

Tony saw this one coming.

“I know what you’re thinking.” He held up one hand in defense. “And the answer is...yes. But not the way you think! Yes, I’ve had a bit to drink. A lot to drink. I’ve been doing nothing but drinking for the last twenty years. Maybe a little heavy machinery on the side, but the point is these people only showed up again _now_. Today.”

“It’s because we have to talk to you,” Steve continued to insist. He took his weight off the door and crossed the room to stand by Tony’s chair. “We learned something.”

Tony didn’t look at him.

He turned his face away. Lifted one hand to cover his ear on the pretense of resting his head against his fist.

“Has anything significant changed in your life?” the psychiatrist asked. She talked over Steve – or he talked over her – perfectly oblivious to the sound of his voice. “Anything major?”

“Nope. Nothing.”

In the corner, Hulk made a low, growling sound.

Tony shifted uncomfortably.

“When’s the last time you thought about your father?”

“1991. At his funeral.”

She didn’t look like she believed him.

“Tell her about that time you were drunk at the Expo,” said Clint, “and you threw your hot dog at that statue of him.”

Tony pinched the brow of his nose. He shut his eyes tight.

“Is that even relevant?”

“Yeah. It was a waste of a good hot dog.”

“You said these hallucinations take the form of four consistent individuals, all of whom are male,” said the psychiatrist. She tapped her pen over what she wrote on her notepad. “One historical. One mythological. Two archetypal.”

“Archetypal?”

“The archer and the monster. These could represent basic insecurities that have their roots in childhood. Perhaps repressed feelings about your father. You project them into these shapes to put them outside yourself. Make them external instead of internal.”

“What feelings? I don’t have feelings.”

“The monster represents the inhuman. The unknown. It could be anything from fear of future instability to what’s hiding in the closet.”

Clint snorted.

“And the archer?”

“The archer sounds like a cupid archetype. Fear of a relationship. Commitment. Archers also have a history of being associated with strong, independent women.”

“Okay, so skip to the end. How do I make them go away?”

“We’re not going away,” Steve said firmly.

“We will not be ignored any longer,” said Thor.

“There’s medications I could prescribe.” The psychiatrist adjusted her glasses. “But I’m reluctant to make a diagnosis after a fifteen minute conversation. I can run some tests. We can meet a few more times—”

“Which we don’t have time for,” Steve exasperated.

“—and then decide which course is best to take—”

“Tony—”

“Okay, what is so damn important?” Tony pushed himself up from his chair and turned to round on Steve. (Steve who wasn’t there.) “Tell me. What is so important that you guys have to show up again after _twenty years_ , after I’ve managed to get on with my life without you, that you expect me to drop everything and listen?”

Steve at least had the graciousness to take a step back. Put a little space between them.

He regathered himself, then stood his ground.

“We need to talk about it,” he said, striving to sound patience, “but not here. There’s someone you need to meet.”

“No, we can talk about it right here. C’mon. Bring them in. There’s enough seats for everyone. We’ll order take-out.”

“Uhh, Tony?” Clint pointed from his perch on the couch. “I think the lady’s about to go for the phone.”

Tony spun back around to the psychiatrist, remembering where to look.

She had her phone in one hand with her finger on a conspicuously bright red button.

“Ah! Damn. Sorry, Miss...Potts? I, uh...just lost concentration there for a second. Just let me ask: is there anything, like, a sedative you could give me? Just something temporary? I feel like a good long nap and a shower would do me a world of good, and—”

Suddenly Tony stopped. Just...stopped.

His mouth closed. His posture straightened. He tugged down the sleeves of his wrinkled suit jacket and smoothed down his tie, an incredibly uncomfortable tingle running up and down his sides and to all his bodily extremities.

“I’m sorry about that, Miss Potts,” he said, except it wasn’t him speaking.

It was...someone else.

It was...Steve?

“I think I’m just under a lot of stress lately. I crashed my car earlier when I thought I saw those people in the rearview mirror. The medical team gave me some apomorphine and percodan at the site. I think I’m having a bad reaction to it. I’m so sorry to have bothered you. I’ll show myself out.”

Miss Potts at least lowered the phone she had picked up, her finger easing away from the red button.

She still looked at him a little wide-eyed.

“Of...course?” She sounded less than certain. “Should I call you a cab?”

“No thank you, ma’am. I have a friend who can come pick me up.”

Then Tony turned to walk out.

He saw it happening like he was watching it on a television screen. Vivid. Real. But a little separate.

“And please, keep the check.”

He smiled and shut the door behind him.

**********

Outside, Steve let go of his body.

Let go, because that was the only way Tony could think to describe it.

Like he was a puppet and someone had shoved a full-bodied hand up his ass.

He stumbled forward upon realizing he was in control of himself again, gasping for breath as he clung to a bike rack, leaning far over it until the dizzy swim in his head went away.

“Tony?” Steve had the nerve to ask. “Are you okay?”

The others had followed them out.

Tony wheezed.

“Don’t you ever...” He pointed up at Steve, hoping his aim was good as he was too busy being nauseous to actually look. “...do that again...”

“I’m sorry. But this is important.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“I didn’t know we could do that.” Clint slipped in close to Tony to look him over in a way Tony found entirely inappropriate. (And that was saying something.) “Can I go next?”

“Nobody is going next!” Tony waved his arm frantically to shoo him off. His hand went right through him. “Now what the hell is going on or so help me I am having myself committed tonight!”

“We’re not hallucinations, Tony,” said Steve, the calm voice of control. “We’re real. We came back.”

Clint shrugged.

“Technically we never left.”

“You’re not real!” Tony insisted. There was proof enough in that he could look at the exterior of the small psychiatry practice and see the walls not demolished from Hulk’s coming and going. “You are...! I don’t know what. Subconscious manifestations from some trauma I had when I was a kid. You’re a coping mechanism!”

“We are real, human,” Thor said sternly. “And you will heed our words.”

“What words! I’m still not hearing an explanation!”

“Someone else is here who can explain it better than we can,” Steve soothed. Or attempted to. Tony had a death grip on the bike rack and had backed himself up against it, puffed up like a cornered cat. “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you. If you’ll just go with us we can all talk and figure this thing out.”

“Go where?” Tony didn’t let go. “Say a bar and I might consider it.”

Steve shrugged with his hands, sighing.

“If that’s what it will take...”

“Fine. I’m getting a drink. Maybe six.” And the majority of occupants in a dimly-lit enough atmosphere wouldn’t care about some guy sitting in a corner booth talking to himself.

Tony – carefully – let go of the bike rack.

He put on a pair of sunglasses to make himself less noticeable to any passing paparazzi.

“I almost can’t wait to hear this.” Now that the initial panic was starting to wear off, he laughed. Giddy in the aftermath of adrenaline. “Who are we going to see?”

“An angel.”

“Oh, hell.”

**********

Tony had heard a lot about angels over the course of his life. He’d never paid that much attention, but the general descriptions seemed to have common themes of halos, harps, inner light, and togas.

This angel wasn’t like that at all.

He looked like he worked for the IRS.

“Mr. Stark. Pleasure to meet you.” He held out his hand to shake as Tony slid into the booth seat opposite him.

Tony didn’t take it, instead tipping down his sunglasses to look over the rim.

The ‘angel’ had a smug little half-smile on his face – a look of private amusement – that Tony guessed was a permanent fixture.

“And who am I meeting?” he asked. “Exactly?”

“Call me Phil.”

“Phil?”

Steve, Clint, and Thor crowded into the booth seats around them.

Hulk plopped down on the floor nearby.

Tony scooted over as far into the wall as he could manage to minimize actual contact with Steve’s arm. He didn’t like the electric tingle that shot through his system every time they passed through each other.

It was like licking a battery with his elbow.

“Right. Phil the angel.”

“Think of me more as an agent working for a secret government organization,” Phil said, folding his hands on top of the table. “If that will help.”

His smile didn’t waver.

“Okay, Phil. Spill.”

Phil the angel loosely folded his fingers together.

“Mr. Stark. You’re what we like to call a ‘vessel.’ A body in the physical plane with a tendency to attract the energy of displaced personas.”

Tony nodded as he only half listened. A waitress had come over to the table to take his order. He mumbled an exorbitant amount for whatever was the strongest alcohol they had, and slid her a hundred which he told her to keep.

The girl looked…surprised…but didn’t argue. She pocketed the hundred and left the table.

Tony always overtipped.

It wasn’t just a matter of him being able to afford it, but people in the service industry made crap wages to serve entitled jerkoffs like himself. They deserved a bonus.

Plus tips went a long way in case anyone came asking for him later.

Tony hunched down in his seat next to the wall and pushed his sunglasses up his nose.

“Rich. Famous. Good-looking. Mother of all electromagnets in my chest. Yeah, I can see why I would be attractive. What was the rest about? Displaced…?”

“Personas,” said Phil.

“You mean, like, ghosts?”

“In a sense. But not necessarily. Displaced personas can be anything from souls knocked out of their own body during astral projection, to wandering ghosts, to people who have been destroyed at the molecular level while their consciousness remains intact.”

“Does that happen often?”

“More than you might think.” Phil smiled and gestured around the table. “Everyone here has been corporally displaced.”

“Except me,” Clint volunteered. “I’m actually dead.”

“And me,” said Steve.

Phil’s smile momentarily vanished and he looked across the table, reciting with complete and utter seriousness:

“Legends never die.”

“Great.” Tony paused again as the waitress returned, setting down a bottle of vodka on the table, one glass with some ice, and a small napkin.

He didn’t bother with the glass.

“Not all at once,” Steve murmured.

Tony ignored him.

“Mnn. Better. Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Displaced ghosts. Dead people. Whatever. Why me?” Tony looked over his sunglasses. Contrary to popular relief, the drink made him feel more focused. It took the worry out of his limbs. “And why now?”

“You, because you radiate a certain compatibility,” said Phil. “And now, because…”

He shrugged.

“It seemed like as good a time as any.”

“You know, I’m having a little trouble buying all of this.” Tony took another drink. “How do I know you – all of you – aren’t just the product of some massive mental breakdown?”

Phil kept smiling. He shrugged and lightly tilted his head.

“I suppose you don’t. But if it will be more convincing, Mr. Banner over there can take your body out for a spin on the dance floor.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Banner.” He gestured to where Hulk was sitting on the floor, poking with mild interest at the people who walked around and through him. “Though I don’t suppose you know him by that name yet.”

“PUNY BANNER,” Hulk rumbled.

Tony blinked. He set his chin in his hand, listening to the juke box’s most recent play.

What’s New Pussycat. Tom Jones.

“You said these displaced…”

“Personas.”

“…personas are attracted to me. Why? What am I supposed to do?”

“In this case, they need your help in getting back to their own bodies.” Phil tipped his head in a nod. “Which usually means completing a task. Finishing something left unfinished before this happened to them.”

“Why can’t they do it themselves?”

“They can’t. They’re incorporeal.”

“Why can’t you do it?”

“Because they chose you.” Phil gestured aside to Clint. “Except in his case. Mr. Barton doesn’t get to go back to his body because, well, it’s been dead for thirty-some years. I’m not sure you would want it.” He made a face. “But he will get a chance to move on.”

“Gee, thanks,” Clint grumbled.

“Worry not, my friend.” Thor clapped him heartily on the back with a reassuring smile – or tried to, anyway…being incorporeal didn’t lend itself well to pats on the back. “You are a valiant warrior! Valhalla awaits you.”

“Not sure I can pull off the horned helmet look as well as you,” said Clint.

Tony took off his sunglasses to rub his eyes, good and thorough.

“Let me guess. These guys aren’t going to go away until they complete their unfinished business, or whatever.”

“Afraid not,” said Phil, still smiling.

“And if I ever want a peaceful night’s sleep again, I’m going to have to go through with this.”

“Afraid so.”

Tony flopped back in his seat. He let his hands drop into his lap.

“Well, what the hell? I didn’t have plans for the next few months anyway.”

“Actually you have five days.”

“Five days?” Steve finally joined in, frowning across the table. “Why five days?”

“It’s difficult to explain.” Phil made a genuinely pained expression and did a swirling gesture with his hands. “It’s a cosmic cycle thing. Five days is your only window of opportunity.”

Tony hesitated, then asked anyway.

“What happens if they’re still here in five days?”

“Then the connection wears itself out. Then they’ll be lost for good.”

“So I could just wait five days and then they’ll go away on their own?”

“You could,” Phil nodded, already ahead of the various reactive looks sent his way. “But then you would have the permanent spiritual death of four different people on your hands. People who were your friends as a child and never did you any harm. And in the meantime they can take over your body and do whatever they please.”

Tony cringed.

So much for that plan.

“I know Thor would love to drive one of these Midgardian cars. Right, Thor?”

“It is a challenge I would meet,” Thor nodded.

“Do you know how to drive?”

“Nay.”

“What about you, Hulk?” Phil looked to him. “When’s the last time you hit something?”

“HULK WANT SMASH,” growled Hulk, clenching a fist the size of Tony’s front door.

“Okay! Okay. I get it.” Tony held up his hands.

“Then you’ll do it?”

Steve looked to him. The others looked to him. The looks ranged from hopeful to vaguely threatening to hopeful but also containing a vague threat.

“Yeah,” Tony mumbled, ducking his head. “I’ll do it.”

“Good,” Phil smiled.

“But we’re going to have to set some boundaries with the whole body-possessing thing.”

Tony wondered if Hulk would even fit.

“Naturally. I’m glad we’ve come to an agreement.” Phil folded his hands in front of him again. “Did you have any other questions, Mr. Stark?”

“Just one.” He took another sip of vodka. “You’re an angel.”

“Yes.”

“What’s God like?”

“A very tall black man with an eyepatch,” he answered promptly. “A little on the cranky side.”

Somehow, Tony could completely believe it.

“Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”

“Yeah. I’m good.”


	2. Chapter 2

It was universally decided Clint should go first.

“I think you all just wanna get rid of me,” he scowled, sitting in the back seat of Tony’s car and glaring out the window. Thor sat beside him, with Steve up front while Tony drove.

Hulk sat on top.

“It’s because your task will be the easiest,” said Steve, glancing to him through the rearview mirror. “We need to prioritize if we’re going to get everyone done in time.”

“What exactly is your ‘task?’” Tony glanced up to the mirror as well. The front of his car was a wreck from where he had crashed it earlier – Steve hadn’t lied about that to the psychiatrist…Tony didn’t think Steve could lie about anything – but it still drove, dangling one sad headlight out over the bumper.

Clint was quiet for a moment, then he said:

“I need to square things with Natasha.”

“Natasha-Natasha?”

“Yeah. My old partner. She, uhh…” Clint glanced down at his hands. It was the first time Tony could remember seeing him look that serious. “She was there when I died.”

“Was she the one who killed you?”

Tony wasn’t sure why he asked, but he could remember...vaguely, through a haze of twenty years...Clint talking about Natasha when he was a kid.

Wistful. Always turning his eyes a little to one side, the way a person did when they weren’t being entirely honest. But he would smile and tell Tony stories of their missions – he’d called them ‘adventures’ then – in other countries, and the shenanigans that happened in cities like Prague, Hong Kong, Paris.

Budapest.

When he was a kid and hiding under his bed because he could hear his mom and dad shouting at each other down the hallway, Tony had liked to imagine himself thirty miles behind enemy lines. Hiding in a ditch while he waited for extraction. Enemy fire on all sides.

Joking with Clint and Thor and Steve as they played along. Huddled around him.

Like they could protect him.

Clint talked a lot about food on those adventures, too, making Tony realize suddenly how hungry he was and that he craved some good, crisp donuts.

“It wasn’t her fault.” Clint’s voice drew Tony back to the present, made him blink and look to him in the rearview mirror.

Turning a corner made light through the car windows play across Clint’s face; a quick, alternating pattern of shadow.

Tony almost didn’t ask.

“Was it an accident?”

From what he remembered of the stories, Natasha didn’t have accidents.

She had always been the more dangerous of the two.

“It’s...” Clint looked down at his hands, closing them into fists. “Complicated.”

Tony’s phone rang, dispersing the gravity of the moment.

“Sorry. I have to take this.” He reached down and pressed the controls on the armrest of his car, recognizing the number on the readout. “Happy?”

“Boss!” Happy’s voice came fuzzy but relieved over the car’s speakers. A Bluetooth set-up so Tony wouldn’t have to give up one of his hands while he was driving. “Boss, where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you—”

“Yeah. Happy. I meant to call you. Things have been a little nuts today.”

“Yeah, boss. Some yuppie took footage you at Kinkos on his phone. I confiscated it.”

“We don’t call them yuppies anymore, Hap. They’re hipsters.”

“No, this guy was definitely a yuppie. Had a yuppie vibe.”

“...right. Anyway, thanks.”

“Sure thing, boss. Where are you?”

“Yeah, about that.” Tony glanced at his GPS. “I’m gonna be scarce for a few days.”

“A few days?”

“Some old friends showed up kind of unexpectedly.”

Happy was quiet for a moment.

“Boss...is that code? Have you been kidnapped?”

“I haven’t been kidnapped. I’m just heading out of town for awhile.”

“Awhile?”

“Yeah.”

“Like, awhile-awhile?”

“Just for a few days.” Another glance to the rearview mirror. “Maybe.”

“You sure you should go alone, boss? You were just in a car accident.”

“I’m fine, Happy. Just hold down the fort for me for a little while. Jarvis can take care of the house until I get back.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, boss—”

“Bye, Happy.”

“Boss—”

Tony hung up.

He deliberated a moment, then flipped a panel open in the same set of controls on his arm rest, and pushed his thumb into an indentation.

“Jarvis, run a blood diagnostic.”

“Right away, sir,” said Jarvis over the car speakers.

The look Steve sent him was scathing.

“Really?”

“Eliminating all possibilities.” Tony felt a barely-there sting in his thumb, then lifted it, sucking up the pinprick of blood leftover on his skin. “I’m still not one hundred percent convinced this isn’t part of some elaborate breakdown.”

Holographic readouts projected across the car’s dashboard for Tony to glance over.

Clint leaned in to look over the back of the seat.

“I remember when eight-tracks were a thing,” he mumbled.

“No toxins detected,” Jarvis reported. “Blood analysis is within normal parameters.”

“Great,” Tony drawled.

“Except for your alcohol level, sir. You really shouldn’t be driving.”

“I can’t exactly let one of them take over, can I?”

“You could let me take over, sir.”

“That didn’t work when I was in college, J, and it’s not gonna work now.”

“Of course, sir.”

“So where are we going?” He glanced back to Clint.

Clint plopped back in the rear seat with a resolved sigh.

“Santa Monica,” he said, turning his gaze out the window. “In the hills. I’ll tell you how to get there...”

*****

The place was an old, dilapidated Victorian built up on a cliff overlooking the bay as if out of some regency novel.

Tony parked the car and walked the few miles up the dirt and gravel road to make his approach a little less noticeable.

He thought about bringing the suit, and decided not to.

Mostly he didn’t want any of the others taking over his body and flying around in it.

“Looks like a place a washed-out villain would live,” he muttered, pushing open the rusty front gate covered in vines. “Let me know if Gomez and Morticia are looking.”

“It looks abandoned,” said Steve. “One of us should slip inside and check it out.”

“I’ll go,” Clint nodded. “I can see if it’s still in there.”

Tony’s steps crunched overly loud across the leaf-strewn lawn as he made his way to the front porch. Also dry and falling apart.

No cars. No lights on in the windows.

The others could only be so far away from him at a time – Tony had tested this theory trying to outrun them…sometimes out-drive them – so he pressed himself up against the front door to give Clint maximum range as he slipped through the wall into the house.

Outside, dry leaves shifted in a half-hearted wind and cicadas chirped. The only sound while they waited.

Tony wondered if they would be able to keep up with him when he was flying?

“It is a manor with a worthy view,” Thor said, trying to be helpful.

Steve and Tony looked at the ground. Hulk snorted and sat down on the lawn.

A few minutes later, Clint came back.

“Place is empty,” he said, and looked considerably brighter. “And I found the necklace. It’s in the same spot.”

“Great,” mumbled Tony. “How do I get in?”

“Pick the lock?”

“No tools.” Or targeted explosives. Tony had left those in his other car.

“Then kick in the door. The wood’s old. Should be flimsy.”

“Alright. Stand back.”

The others moved back. Not out of fear of any physical danger, but Tony had set down some rules in the car on the way over when it came to contact.

No one was getting in his body without his permission again.

He took a step back, braced himself, and landed a kick on the door right next to the handle.

“…!”

And fell back on the porch, holding his foot and hissing a stream of curses that questioned his parentage for several generations.

The others winced.

“Okay, maybe it’s not so flimsy,” Clint mumbled.

“Plan B?” prompted Steve.

Clint looked up.

“Window?”

Tony groaned and rolled onto his back.

“You’ve got to be kidding…”

“Relax. I was in the circus.”

Somehow, that explained a lot about Clint, Tony realized.

Tony got up, and backed – limped – a few steps away as Clint started towards him.

“Oh no! No no no no no. We are not doing that again…!”

“Are you gonna climb up there on your own?” Clint spread his hands, palms open and innocent. “Just trust me on this. I’ll let you go as soon as we’re in.”

Tony didn’t want to do it.

He really _really_ didn’t want to do it.

But he looked up to the closest window and how it was positioned over a precarious awning that he could probably climb if he had some mechanical assistance.

He should have just brought the suit. He could have blasted the door down and had the owner bill him for damages. But then he would have to explain what he was doing there in the first place and why he was in Santa Monica and...

“Alright. Alright! Fine.”

“Be careful,” said Steve, repeating himself as Tony stepped aside a moment to mentally prepare. Groaning and rubbing his face. “Whatever happens in there, it’s Tony’s body. Not yours.”

“I know,” said Clint, already eying the distance between the porch railing and the roof’s edge. “I got this.”

“And…make it quick.” Tony shook himself out to hide his shudder. “Let’s not prolong the Exorcist act any longer than we have to, okay?”

“I’m not gonna make your head spin around and spit up pea soup.” Clint paused for thought. “Although that would be cool…”

“Clint,” said Steve.

“Okay. Here we go. You ready?” He looked to Tony.

Who was not ready. At all.

But he nodded and took a deep breath anyway.

“Yeah. Let’s. Just. Get this over with.”

Clint met his eyes. Just briefly. He tipped his head down the barest amount.

“Thanks for doing this, Tony,” he said. “Really.”

“Yeah. Still waiting on you.” Tony gestured him forward. Before the awkwardness grew any heavier. “C’mon.”

Clint’s mouth quirked up to one side in the hint of a smile. Then he stepped forward into the space where Tony was standing, turning so their bodies aligned.

Tony felt that nauseating tingle roll over his system…a little bit of a vurp in the back of his throat…then he shook his head.

Except it wasn’t him. It was Clint.

“This is weird,” Clint-Tony mumbled, blinking his eyes as he looked around, having to squint against the sun’s sudden emergence from behind a cloud.

“How does it feel?” Thor asked, looking on in interest.

“I feel…short. And heavy.” Clint stretched, and backed down the porch steps, looking up towards the roof’s overhang.

Tony was no acrobat.

But Clint was.

Or had been.

He crouched. Got a running start. Then jumped.

Clint planted one foot on the flat board of the porch railing to use as a launch point to propel himself up. His hands grabbed the rusty metal gutter easily, and with a neat flip he twirled, landing with a crunch on the slick roof shingles.

Tony’s part of their stomach did a flip as well.

“Okay,” Clint said out loud, wobbling until he regained his balance. “Little rusty, but not bad.”

Speaking of rusty, Tony thought, mentally calculating backwards until he could remember having his last tetanus shot.

“Move quick,” Steve instructed from the ground. “The sooner we’re gone, the better.”

Clint nodded, and turned to make for one of the second floor windows. They were latched, but the wood and framing was as old and warped as the rest of the house. A little jiggling and a well-placed elbow broke one of them free, and he slipped inside.

A dusty attic. Clint covered Tony’s mouth with one sleeve so he didn’t overly breathe any of it, and eased his way carefully across the floorboards. They creaked and groaned with the weight of every step, making Clint and Tony both clench.

“Hard to sneak through an old house in wingtips,” Clint mumbled behind his hand.

At the bottom of the stairs, the dust finally caught in Tony’s nose and he sneezed.

Clint had to lean for a moment against the stairway to recover, smiling brightly to the others as they walked through the front wall to join him.

“Guys! This is amazing! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve sneezed?”

“Aye,” said Thor, nodding gravely. “We know it to the day.”

“This is great!”

“Where’s the necklace?” Steve pushed.

“Here. It’s in here.”

Clint led the way through a short hall and entry way into another room. Faded green corduroy furniture decorated the floor between dark wooden bookshelves, most of which were covered in a layers of dust. A fireplace lined one wall between two tall windows, black hints of wayward sparks dotting the carpet before the hearth.

“There it is.” Tony’s face barely had room to contain Clint’s grin as he spotted what he had come there to find: a tiny silver coffer chest set on the mantle over the fireplace.

He approached and opened it up with a careful reverence, drawing out a small necklace on a chain.

To Tony, it looked perfectly unremarkable. Plain silver. Nothing fancy. The only thing on it was a small silver arrow: the equivalent of a high school charm bead that needed a good polish.

But the way Clint held it up in the light and stared made Tony think better of making any smart remarks once he had control of his mouth back.

Clint coiled it up in his hand like he thought it might break.

Thor nodded, smiling approval.

“Your quest was successful!”

“Yeah,” Clint smiled. A breathy laugh.

Steve’s attention was elsewhere. On the mantle. On the table between two of the faded armchairs. Frowning.

“Clint,” he said after a moment, as Clint tucked the necklace securely away in Tony’s pocket. “Someone still lives here.”

“Yeah,” said Clint. “So?”

“And they were here recently.”

“Yeah. So?”

“And they have a—”

They all heard the faint click of nails on wood at the same time. They all turned to look, freezing in place – corporeal or non – as a shadow fell through one of the open doorways leading into the sitting room.

It was the biggest Rottweiler Tony had ever seen.

“You didn’t check for a dog?” Steve exasperated, nearly drowned as the beast let out a growl and bark that shook the house to its foundation.

“That mutt should have bit it years ago!” Clint shouted back and dove for the couch, using it as a barrier to put between himself and the dog as it lunged forward, snarling spittle from an admittedly grey-furred but still teeth-filled mouth. The Rottweiler took no issue with the couch and climbed onto it, tipping the thing over with its weight to come after him.

Clint scrambled to regain his feet, but went down again as the dog snapped hold of his pantleg.

Well, Tony went down. Clint remained standing where he was, knocked out of his body.

“Little help here!” Tony cried from the floor as his pant leg ripped.

Clint spread his hands, not budging otherwise.

“What exactly do you expect any of us to do?”

To his credit, Thor tried. He bellowed mightily and swung an arm into the dog’s side, meant to bowl it over and knock it off of Tony, but he went right through it and into the next wall.

The dog snarled and lunged after Tony again.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, there came the sound of tires on gravel as a car pulled up in front of the house.

“Jarvis!” Tony yelped, scrambling up to his feet. The couch didn’t seem an option so he jumped up on the coffee table, dancing as far away from the dog as he could get. “Suit! Suit now!”

“The Mark V is in the trunk of your car, sir,” Jarvis answered over Tony’s wristwatch. “Deploying it now will summarily ruin the vehicle’s back end. You’ll have no mode of transport.”

“Permanently if this thing gets hold of me!” Tony jumped foot to foot, narrowly escaping the Rottweiler’s jaws as it barked and snapped at him, half climbed onto the table as well. “Do it, Jarvis!”

“Very well, sir. Mark V deployed.”

Nothing happened immediately. Tony ticked off the seconds in the back of his mind that it would take for the suit to unlock itself from suitcase position and power up and get to him – he’d run tests – while he looked frantically between Steve and Clint and Thor, and the increasingly angry voice at the front door demanding to know what the dog was going on about.

Or such was Tony’s best guess. Whoever it was spoke in Russian.

“This would be a great time to be an acrobat!”

Clint blinked up at him.

“I thought you didn’t want us in your body—”

“Barton if you don’t Cirque du Soleil me out of here you can dig your necklace out of this canine’s next bowel movement yourself!”

That seemed to do the trick.

Clint jumped up onto the table and aligned himself with Tony’s body again, just in time for the front door to burst open and to duck a blast fired from a shotgun.

Clint-Tony didn’t bother to get a good look at the presumed owner of the house – Tony had the feeling Clint knew who it was already – but the angry shouting in Russian increased. The dog continued to bark and snap. Clint crouched low, then leaped, grabbing onto the chandelier overhead and with a few quick pumps of his legs got it swinging enough to make a leap for the nearest window.

Glass shattered as he hit the window feet first. Landed. Fell. Tumbled to roll with it and scrambled back up to take off running.

The dog came right after him.

Tony felt hot breath on the back of his ankle when Hulk appeared suddenly on the lawn, towering over the dog as he roared full-bodied into the Rottweiler’s face.

Evidently, dogs could see ghosts.

The dog yelped. Almost fell over with its dedication to turning around. Then it bolted back for the house, whining all the way.

Tony half ran, half stumbled into the treeline surrounding the property, ducking into the leaves.

*****

His suit was there to greet him.

“Oh, honey,” he crooned, finding a physical relief as he touched the shoulders. The sculpted alloy arms. Stepped inside and felt cool armor surround him. “Oh, baby. I have never been so happy to see you.”

Systems came online. Tony breathed a little easier.

“Guys, I think I’m just gonna stay in here until this whole thing is over with. If it’s all the same to you.”

Though he immediately mentally retracted the statement. The thought of any of them taking over his body while he was in the suit made him want to curl up and make frightened guinea pig noises.

Jarvis pulled up an image of the car on the HUD as the suit had left it after deployment.

Yeah, it was pretty much ruined.

“Looks like we’re flying from here.”

“Good,” said Clint. “We need to move.”

“Yeah. Where we headed next? Please don’t say Russia.”

“Almost,” said Clint. “Frisco.”

“Frisco?”

“Yeah. We have a safehouse there.”

“How exactly are you guys gonna travel?”

“We’ve flown around with you before,” said Steve, still keeping a lookout behind them for the dog or owner. “Don’t worry.”

“Really?” Tony frowned, thinking back on his first few flights.

That couldn’t have been comfortable.

*****

San Francisco was about a six hour drive from Santa Monica up Interstate 5.

But any experienced Californian knew the 5 was a nightmare for traffic, and the travel time was never what it said on Mapquest.

Tony could make it in under an hour in his suit.

It was strange...well, the whole day had been strange, but if Tony took long enough to stop and consider all the strangeness at once then his desire to crawl inside a whiskey bottle and never come out would win out at last.

So he took the strangeness one little thing at a time.

Right now, it was the fact that – due to the proximity requirements that appeared to be in place between the others and himself – Steve, Clint, Thor, and Hulk were just kind of dragged along wherever he went. They could never be very far away at any given time.

That included when he was flying.

Steve and Clint sat on his back, slumped and bored as they took in the overhead view of California like world-wearied tourists. Like it was something they’d seen every day for the last twenty-some years.

Thor flew along beside like he was used to that sort of thing.

Hulk was...well, Tony didn’t know where Hulk was. Presumably dragged along behind at the end of his invisible tether, growling and snarling the whole way.

Tony didn’t think too hard about that.

He focused instead on the logistics of why ghosts would have to sit anywhere. Their presence wasn’t any added weight, and they seemed unaffected by the wind or cold. Also they pinged on his scans – just barely – when he did a few surreptitous checks on an electro-magnetic setting.

It was all better stuff to think about than what other things they would have seen if they had really always – _always_ – been there when Tony was growing up. That was just embarassing.

And why they hadn’t shown up again when...certain other things happened.

They landed again in Frisco, on a sloped inner-city street in front of a cinderblock building.

“A ballet school?” Tony remarked dubiously, taking a few quick scans of the facade.

A ballet school with three-inch lead lining in the walls and several floors built in below ground. Both were not quite in accordance with city regulations.

“Safe house,” said Clint. “One of our fallback spots.”

“You have a lot of those, if I recall,” said Tony. “What makes you think she’s here?”

Clint’s voice dipped in a moment’s nostalgia.

“This one was her favorite.”

He quickly shook himself out of it.

“Anyway, if she isn’t, there will at least be a way to get in touch with her. Entrance is around back.”

“We know what we’re walking into this time, right?” Tony clarified but followed him anyway, around a side alley to the rear of the building. “No monster dogs? No sawed-off shotguns?”

“No. None of that. Just your standard-issue laser security system. Wire nets. Gas traps.”

Tony stopped and looked at him.

Clint smirked.

“I’m joking.”

The rear entry way was a metallic cellar door, spray painted a chipped and rusty green. Kept closed by a heavy padlock which Tony cut through with one quick flick of a wrist laser.

“Mostly,” Clint amended as they opened it up and went inside.

*****

Clint hadn’t been joking.

Tony set his visual scans to infrared and saw the laser grid laid out across the corridor. Gas grenades were planted in the walls and enough explosives laced the foundation to bring down the whole building, should the need arise.

“Right,” Tony mumbled. “Spies.”

“I think you should lose the suit,” Clint offered.

“Forget it.”

“Lose the suit. You already broke in. If Nat sees you coming in full armor she’ll treat you like a threat.”

“So give me the secret code, or something. You do bird whistles, right?”

“I think he’s right, Tony,” said Steve. “As a white flag.”

“Okay, compromise.” Tony took off the headpiece. He tucked it under one arm. “But if I’m walking into someone’s den who is commonly known as the Black Widow, I’m bringing armor.”

It was easy enough to deactivate the laser grid, and bypass the other traps.

If there were cameras, anyone operating inside would have seen him coming anyway.

Tony had a few prototypes in the works for generating stealth-shields, but they weren’t optimized. He couldn’t make himself invisible. Yet.

Anyone watching would have also heard him talking to himself by now.

He didn’t see her coming, or any panel she could have appeared so suddenly from. Maybe she had been there the whole time, crouching behind the cover of one of the overhead support beams.

All Tony knew was that suddenly there was a pair of legs wrapped around his neck, and while he normally would have enjoyed that sort of thing, this pair cut off the air to his windpipe rather effectively, and with one quick twist had slammed him face-down into the floor. Armor and all.

“Nat!” Clint said brightly.

“Who sent you?” hissed a voice next to Tony’s ear.

Tony wasn’t sure why, since the choke hold on his neck made it impossible to answer. He gasped, his face flushing red, hearing the pound of his own pulse in his ears as he groped uselessly against the floor to try and push himself up.

“Bah…ba…!” He tried his best.

“Nat it’s me!” Clint said, louder. Slipping in close. But she couldn’t see him.

And since this time Clint conveniently decided not to take over Tony’s body and maybe get him out of this choke hold, Tony resolved it his own way.

He held up one repulsor and blasted it at the nearest wall, the force enough to repel him back.

He slammed into the opposite wall, the woman taking the brunt of it.

She grunted and let go.

Tony rolled away onto his side, gasping as his vision cleared.

“Barton…!” he rasped, slapping his hand three times on the floor in hopes this woman would know the universal sign of tapping out and not decide to attack again. “...Barton sent me!”

She rolled immediately to her feet, prepared in a ready crouch.

But...she hesitated, eying him with a wariness that creased her brow deep.

“What?” she demanded, her voice hard and bitterly cold.

“Clint Barton,” Tony repeated, rubbing his sore throat. “He sent me here. Sort of.”

“Barton’s dead.”

“Yeah, I know. Believe me, I know.” Tony coughed. Cleared his throat. He sat up enough to rest more comfortably – as non-threatening as possible – and looked the woman over.

She was…well, smoking, for one. Red hair and athletic body and a face that could be in magazines. A dark jumpsuit clung to her body in a very flattering and efficient kind of way. But her eyes were cold. Almost dead. The tension in her body reminded Tony of a snake coiled to strike.

And she was young. Maybe even younger than Tony.

He hadn’t been expecting that.

“You’re Natasha, right?”

Tony rested his weight on his hands, careful to keep them in view and not make any sudden movements. She was wearing that tight black jumpsuit but that didn’t mean he couldn’t see the tell-tale lines of at least a dozen blades stashed here and there about her person.

“I…uhh…I was hoping to find you, actually.”

Her brows furrowed briefly closer together. She remained in her crouch, one hand behind her back, ready to leap away or shank him at the slightest wrong twitch.

“How do you know Barton?” she asked.

“He’s…ah…is… _was_ …a friend of mine.”

“Barton didn’t have friends,” she said flatly.

“Uhh…Clint, you wanna take this?” Tony glanced aside, thinking that in fact this was the perfect time for a sudden body possession to convince an elite assassin not to try and off him then and there.

But Clint was…

He knelt to one side, close to them both, but his attention was on Natasha. The way he looked at her made Tony think of when he had dreams about his long dead beagle, Tippy, when he was a kid.

He looked…relieved. Awed. Lost. And a little scared.

Tony pretended it didn’t make his heart twinge the way it did.

“Here, look. I brought something…” Tony opened the chestpiece in his armor.

With a movement too fast to see Natasha whipped out a knife and closed the space between them, pressed it along his throat.

Tony froze, holding his hands up, placating again.

“Hey! Hey! I’m not here to fight. I have this aversion to dying, see. But if you just let me show you this one thing, I think maybe it will help…”

“Slowly,” she said, in a tone not to be argued with.

Tony nodded, and moved his hand – slowly – into the pocket of his coat beneath the armor.

He pulled out the necklace, and held it up for her to see.

The small silver chain dangled, weighted by the tiny arrow.

Natasha froze.

Her eyes went wide, and for several heartbeats Tony was sure she forgot he was even there.

Until he tried to move again. Then she dug the knife in against his throat.

“Where did you get this?” she whispered, a tremor in her voice.

“An old house in Santa Monica,” Tony grunted, wincing against the sting. “Some Russian guy had it.”

Her lips parted. Tony was sure he saw tears in her eyes. She took the necklace in trembling fingers and held it closer. Turned it in the dim light as if to decide whether or not it was real.

She didn’t let up on the knife.

Tony shot an increasingly desperate look to Barton, who was no help at all. He crouched beside Natasha with a similarly moist-eyed openness. He lifted his hand to put it on her shoulder, but passed right through. Tony didn’t know if she could feel it on some level or not, but she let out a breath she’d been holding. Shuddered a little.

“Tony?” said Steve, very quietly, where he stood back with the others, well out of the way.

“I...have no idea what happened between you two,” Tony ignored him for now, venturing carefully. “But...I think...if Clint was here, he would say that – whatever happened – he doesn’t blame you. For any of it. Things were complicated, and you did what you had to do and, well...”

Another glance towards Clint.

Still no help.

“...he still cares about you. A lot. And he would want you to be happy.”

Her eyes shifted to him. Shocked, almost. Maybe affronted. Probably wondering what gave him the right to talk about any of it.

That’s what Tony would have thought in her place.

But before she decided to slice his jugular, Clint finally moved. He got up and slipped into Tony’s body.

This time, Tony let him.

“He would also say this,” Clint mumbled, with a delivery Tony thought was considerably different from his own, and made a few gentle hand gestures.

Sign language.

Tony didn’t know what it said, but it finally broke the dam holding up Natasha’s tight control of herself.

She gasped a little sob, and smiled, answering back with a hand touched gently to her mouth, then away.

She allowed one tear to fall.

*****

Outside, the sun was setting.

Tony hadn’t been so happy to see open sky since he got out of that cave in Afghanistan.

“Do you think she believed me?” he glanced aside to Clint. Of course the necklace hadn’t been enough. Natasha had demanded the whole story and refused to move her knife until Tony gave it.

He told her the truth, as best he understood it. He only left out the part about the angels and such, chalking it up instead to more mundane psychic phenomenon that would probably go over better.

Tony didn’t think she believed him, but she hadn’t looked like she didn’t, either.

She was just hard to read overall.

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” Clint smirked.

He looked like the last twenty years had been taken off his shoulders.

“So what’s the story with her?” Tony asked, gesturing back to the cellar door once he’d closed it behind them. “I mean, you were already an adult when I was a kid, and it’s been twenty years since then. Why isn’t she...? You know.” He made some vague gestures that he thought represented the concept of ‘old.’

Or older, anyway.

Clint shrugged one shoulder, and looked up to the sky.

“Nat’s special,” was all he would say on the subject.

They stood together for a moment looking towards the bay. Himself and Clint and Steve and Thor and Hulk. Through the smog and city pollution the sunset flared a brilliant red-orange, highlighted in places with shades of pink and green. It was beautiful.

It was a nice, quiet, collective moment, as Tony reconciled with himself the notion that he may have just done something truly good for someone else. Something selfless, even if he was dragged kicking and screaming the whole way.

Then his stomach growled.

“Well, now what?” he prompted, shattering the Kodak moment. “Personally, I could really go for a drin—”

A sound like feathers fluttered nearby, making Tony frown and turn.

There stood Phil.

“Now,” he said, with that same insufferable little smile. “It’s time to go.”

“Go?” Tony blinked.

“Go?” Clint also blinked, a degree of his peace suddenly gone.

He looked to the others, rising tension in his posture.

“I mean, already?”

Phil nodded. He held a clipboard in his hands, its contents conveniently turned away from where the others could see. But weilded with the same official authority.

“You finished what you meant to do,” he said. “Now it’s time to move on.”

“Can I...stay a little longer?” Clint winced, inching back a little. He gestured to the others. “I mean, to see the rest of the guys through? They might need my help.”

Phil shook his head. Firm, but not unsympathetic.

“Afraid it doesn’t work that way.”

“Uh, excuse me,” Tony interjected. He even raised his hand in a show of manners. “Do I get a say in this at all?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Just checking.”

“Worry not, my friend,” Thor said as he moved forward and put a hand on Clint’s shoulder. This time it worked, Tony noticed. “You have nothing to fear. A glorious eternity awaits you.”

“Is it Valhalla?” Clint looked towards Phil, pleading. “Please tell me it’s not _actually_ Valhalla.”

Phil smiled.

“That depends on you,” he said.

“So I get to decide?”

“If you want.”

Clint thought for a moment. Though it wasn’t a long moment.

“Can I be reincarnated? Is that a thing?”

Phil nodded.

“Of course.”

“Can I be a dog? I think I’d like to be a dog.”

“I’m sure it can be arranged.” Phil smiled, and not in any way Tony decided was creepy or misleading.

No, he seemed...genuine. Which for Tony was creepy in itself.

It was the only reason Tony didn’t put up an argument. Though why he should feel so protective now was beyond him.

“Well, then I guess that’s it.” Clint put his hand over Thor’s and looked up to him, quirking a bit of a smile. “Thanks for everything, big man.”

Thor beamed in return.

“You have earned your rest, Clint Barton.”

Clint looked to Hulk.

“You’ve never struck me as the hugging type, so I’ll just leave it as a thanks to you too, even bigger man.”

Hulk grunted.

Then he turned to Steve, holding his hand out to shake.

Steve smiled, and took it, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Thanks for putting up with me all these years,” Clint nodded. “Cap.”

“It wasn’t as bad as you make it sound.” Steve nodded gently. Sincerely. “I’ll see you again on the other side, I guess.”

“Team Actually Dead Guys?”

“Team Actually Dead Guys.”

They fist bumped.

Then it was Tony’s turn, and he’d already ducked his head under the weight of awkward as Clint turned to face him.

Clint wrung his hands together, taking a moment.

“Now I can’t think of anything to say,” he half-laughed, trying for a small smile. And failing. “You’re stuck to a guy for twenty-odd years, and then the next day...”

Tony shrugged.

“Don’t mention it? I mean, all that time you spent covering for me as a kid, well...” Tony scratched his forehead with the back of his gauntlet. “I’m just...glad I could do something for you.”

Then Clint smiled. For real.

“Thanks, Tony,” he said.

Tony nodded.

“I’ll adopt a dog and name it Barton.”

They shook hands, and Clint snuck in a hug on him.

Tony clamped down hard on the tightness in the back of his throat.

They stood back and watched as he peeled away and turned to go to Phil, who stood patiently by.

“Is she gonna be okay?” Clint glanced back only once towards the ballet school.

“She will be,” said Phil, nodding. Then he turned to lead the way down the sidewalk.

Clint followed.

“So, angels...they do archery, right?”

“Oh yes. Quite a lot.”

“Cool...”

A few steps, and they were gone.

Just that sound of rustling feathers.

In the quiet that followed, Tony felt the absence of one of them like a hole in his side. A physical void that he wondered would ever go away.

“Tony,” Steve said quietly beside him, not taking his eyes from the path Phil and Clint had walked.

“Yeah?” Tony murmured.

“I’m proud of you.”

Tony huffed a laugh, and shifted his weight to look down at the headpiece of his armor. A disguise the hide the wipe of his eyes.

“Don’t think too highly of me yet,” he said, and slipped it back on. “It’s still only day one.”

“Sir,” said Jarvis once the armor clicked into place. “I’m afraid we have a slight problem.”

“What is it, J?”

Reports and photographs promptly flashed up over the HUD. Holographic text scrolled for Tony to read.

“A police report has just been filed about your abandoned car on the Santa Monica property. I’m afraid a warrant has been issued for your arrest.”

Tony blinked for a moment, preferring not to think.

“...what.”

His stomach growled again.


End file.
